The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy

by David Bischoff

  Richards summoned his men, and Scarborough felt his chair being righted. The faces of his captors swam into view dizzily: Richards, still mopping himself; and a blonde woman in a lab coat and glasses, hands folded under her breasts in a stem and almost schoolteacher fashion.

  He recognized her. He’d met her before, at a few social functions involving Colonel Dolan, and he’d seen her at conferences he’d attended for the Bureau of Mental Health. The Ice Queen, he’d heard her colleagues call her behind her back. Dr. Julia Cunningham. He was right then: he’d been right in his suspicion, his guess, after what the woman in Baltimore had told him. This was the principal doctor working on the fake alien-abductee program. This was the woman who held in her head and her little black bag of medical tricks secrets of mind-control unknown as yet to the general medical community.

  “Hello again, Doctor. I don’t suppose you have any medicinal alcohol about? I could use a stiff drink,” he said, his emotions coming under control.

  Dr. Cunningham ignored him. “I trust if he’s going to have strong tendencies toward violence that I have use of your men for the time being.”

  “Yes. No problem there.” Richards examined his watch. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to do without me. I have to catch a plane very soon. Some essential details I have to deal with back in Washington. But I’m very happy with the tum of events here. Very pleased. You’ll report to me on your progress with—with our guest?”

  “I trust you’ll change your clothes on the plane. You look terrible, Richards. And as to Scarborough, here.” She turned to him, raising an eyebrow. “I shall extend full professional courtesy to Dr. Scarborough. And I think that, given a day or two, he shall indeed be a new man.”

  A hint of a glacial smile touched her mouth and Scarborough could feel frost on his spine.

  “Excellent. Scarborough, I commend you to our good doctor’s healing hands. And I hope that our conversation can be more cordial the next time we meet.”

  “The next time we meet, I’m going to kill you, Richards. I swear it.”

  “You see, my dear,” said Richards with an uneasy chuckle. “Somewhere along the line he’s picked up quite a bit of hostility. Deal with it, please.” With one more hard glance at Scarborough, Richards stormed from the room.

  “Dr. Scarborough,” said Cunningham. “My colleague tends to banter. I do not. I perceive resistance on your part. I warn you in advance, resistance can be broken, albeit painfully. I suggest that you relax and comply as best you can with the situation.”

  “Thanks for the warning, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

  “No? How unfortunate. It’s seldom that I’m allowed to deal with an intellect as strong as yours, a personality as complex. When the patient is not compliant, stronger measures, stronger doses, as it were, are sometimes necessary. This tends to occasionally have unfortunate consequences.”

  “I thought you didn’t banter, Doctor.”

  “In short, Scarborough,” she said through gritted teeth, her eyes flashing with ice. “If you want a shred of yourself left after I’m through with you, you ‘II cooperate.”

  Instinctively, Scarborough realized he was going to have to change tack with this woman. Richards was clearly an individual who, beneath the hard surface respected hardness in others. This woman was clearly all business. A different sort of game was clearly in order.

  “I don’t understand. How can I cooperate? You’ve got me tied down. You can do whatever you want with me. What difference does it make, Doctor?”

  “Are you volunteering cooperation?” A hint of suspicion edged her voice.

  “I’d like to know what it is, first.”

  She snorted. “An attitude, of course. Surrender, if you will. Resignation to your fate.”

  “’To lay me down with a will.’”

  “Yes. Exactly. Naturally, part of the process is the extraction of information.”

  “Right. Are your methods similar to those used on William Buckley in Beirut?”

  A slight smile. “Barbaric methods, those, but ultimately the information was extracted. No, Scarborough. We are light-years ahead, now. There is no actual physical torture involved. Although I am told that at times physical torture is preferable. To the patient.”

  “So much for the Hippocratic Oath, eh?”

  “I am a doctor of science. I serve my country. I have no apologies. But you’ve changed the subject. We merely want to obtain certain items of information. They can be easily verified, so telling the truth is suggested.” Puzzlement creased her brow. “But Scarborough, you refused Richards. Why the change of heart?”

  “Maybe I’ve had time to think.”

  “You’ll talk then?”

  “Just tell me what you want to know, and I’ll do my best.”

  “Hmmm.” She shrugged. “Very well, let me get my tape recorder.” She went to a side table and pulled open a drawer, extracting a small portable recorder. She inserted at tape, and then turned it on.

  “Does this mean no drugs?”

  “Would that disappoint you?”

  “Did anyone ever tell you you might be the prototype of Lilith Sternan on ‘Cheers’?”

  “’Cheers’?” What’s that?”

  “Never mind.”

  Yes, he’d answer questions. Because he knew that once they started inserting the needles, once they emptied their terrible chemicals in his bloodstream, that would complicate things tremendously. He had to stall. He realized there was one hope, and that was Marsha. When he and Mashkin were late, she might be able to come out and investigate.

  That was the hope that he had to cling to.

  “Go ahead. I’ll do my best.”

  “Excellent. Dr. Scarborough, I have been examining your records and your tests for some time.” She was silent for a moment, as though formulating the precisely correct phrasing. “A good many records exist, of course, concerning you in light of your role in Project Blue Book.”

  “You mean my role as patsy.”

  “Whatever. Of course, you can well imagine the file that we possess on you.”

  “Extensive, I dare say.”

  “Yes. But to begin the questioning today, Dr. Scarborough, I shall come directly to an area that causes me great consternation. To wit: there is an element of your personality that has always puzzled us. But allow me to frame my question in this manner:

  “Everett Scarborough, do you have any reason to believe that at some early point in your life, you may have been undergone an alien-abduction experience?”

  Chapter 34

  Ed Myers flushed the toilet and then just knelt there, before the commode, sweating, letting the sickness, the pain, and the guilt, pass over him like a wave. The vomiting had helped somewhat, but shreds of the nausea still clung around the back of his abdomen as though hooked upon his spine.

  I’m sorry, Scarborough, Myers thought. Jesus, I’m so sorry.

  But he had to do it. They hadn’t left him any choice in the matter. They’d threatened his family for God’s sake, and he knew with every fiber of his being that when Brian Richards, the unholy bastard, said something, he meant it.

  Eventually, Myers got up and went to the sink, where he splashed cold water in his face. He dripped for a moment, and then grabbed a towel and wiped his face. Reluctantly, he lifted his reddened face and stared at himself in the mirror.

  His eyes looked as though they were retreating to the back of the skull, and what had once been modest wrinkles now seemed more like fissures. He didn’t look as awful as he felt, though—which was like the Portrait of Dorian Gray. For the first time, he was confronting what this business had turned him into.

  Sure, on the surface it had all seemed just fine, thank you. His family was the ideal Reagan nuclear unit, the ideal that conservatives flashed across millions of TV screens, pushing for Ronnie’s election and re-election. His job was the ultimate in “ask-not-what-your-country-can-do-for-you” professions. He was an Ivy League col
lege graduate; he’d served a two-year hitch in the marines; my stars, he even fucking flossed his teeth, stopped smoking after college, stopped drinking after his first child was born, kept a good attitude, a healthy American optimism. He’d refused to kill people; he’s made sure that his job as CIA operative had never put him in that position. He’d never ordered anyone killed. His duties had stretched from Chile and Central America to Beirut and the Far East, to say nothing of the delights and extravagances of Europe. And yet, even though he was separated from her for long periods of time, he’d never cheated on his wife, Carol. Despite his absences, he tried to be the best father he could—fair, reasonable, and loving. He’d seen the things that power could do to a man, and yet somehow he’d resisted them. He’d thought of himself as a good, just, dutiful citizen—and yet, now, as he looked at himself in the mirror, he knew that it was all rationalization; that throughout his twenty-plus years of service, the rot had slowly crept into him, and now it had broken out in full force.

  He had betrayed his friend; he was in the Judas Iscariot league now. He was just a fucking cipher, a cog in the machine, and when that cog had jammed, they’d taken a power wrench to him and he’d worked just fine. Like a drone. Like a fucking drone. So much for ideals, so much for individuality. Behind the fabric, the vaunted democratic republic of this country, parading the noble words of the Constitution about in disguise, there was the skeleton of simple fascism. People like Richards were the skull beneath the skin. And all this time, he’d just been a dumb minion who’d bought the party-line.

  Ed Myers let go a sigh in a racking heave. He shook himself and took another towel and got the last of the moisture off his face.

  What were they going to do to Scarborough?

  The question gonged in his head like a bell. Suddenly, he just had to know that answer. Suddenly, he realized that everything they’d told him, all this gobbledygook about Editors and Publishers and aliens and what-have-you wasn’t necessarily the truth.

  What were they going to do to him?

  Myers put on his jacket. He combed his hair. He straightened his security badge. He donned once more the sheen of professionalism, of CIA control, of glib competence. Last night, unable to sleep, he’d taken a walk around these halls. Last night, he thought he had heard screaming from one of the rooms. He well knew Dr. Cunningham’s role in this project, but he did not know that it involved screaming. Now that they had Scarborough—was that his destiny as well? Torture? It was hard to imagine, but he knew all too well the sorry history of the CIA in such matters. When it came down to brass tacks, when matters of “national security” came up, the Americans could be just as down and dirty as the Russians, the Chinese, or, for that matter, the Third World political witch-doctors dragging information from prisoners with cattle-prods and dentist tongs.

  And now they had Scarborough. The man he’d betrayed. The man who had helped save his son from drugs.

  He had to find out what they were going to do to him. Suddenly, nothing else mattered.

  Myers washed his mouth out, stuck in a Tic Tac, and was ready to go.

  And he knew just where to go.

  The halls had been practically empty. No guards stood at the doorway, which was locked.

  However, it was not a difficult lock to deal with. Ed Myers drew out his ring of keys, upon which he had a standard issue lock-pick device. It was one of Myers’s specialties, and he had the tumblers tumbling and the knob twisting in just a few short maneuvers of his hand.

  The door opened into darkness. The light from the hallway cast only vague shadows from the still forms in the large area. There was a funny mixture of smells in the room; Myers noticed it immediately. There were disinfectant and medicinal scents, but there was also the taste of blood and vomit and other body wastes. It was a terrifying combination, and it squatted in this room like the ghost of a man who had died hideously.

  Myers fumbled for the light switch. He found it, but closed the door behind him before he turned it on. Unexpectedly, fluorescent lights did not ignite. Instead, softer side-lighting fluttered on—subdued, almost atmospheric.

  Enough to see what Myers had half-expected, but had hoped not to see.

  The man was strapped onto a table with leather belts. It was like something out of a thirties horror movie with Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, only infinitely more horrible for its pathetic banality. The man was unconscious, but still alive, breathing shallowly. Bloodstains ran down from his nose, vomit stains were on his neck and chin. His clothes were soaked with sweat. This was the awfulness that Myers had smelled upon first opening the door.

  Ed Myers did not recognize the man, but he suspected who it was. He stepped to his side and was about to nudge the prone body in the arm, when he saw the worst part.

  He saw the needle tracks in the man’s forearms.

  Jesus. Jesus Christ, they must have thought this poor guy was a pincushion!

  And this was what they were going to do to Everett Scarborough; no doubt about it.

  The man’s skin on his neck was cold and clammy, but the pulse was strong. Myers shook his shoulder slightly. No response. Shook it a little harder. The man’s eyelids fluttered. The mouth worked.

  “Don’t say anything,” said Myers. “Don’t move. Stay very still for a moment.”

  The eyes opened, and flashed immediately with absolute panic. Myers could see the scream starting from deep down in the man and coming up fast. He put his hand over the mouth and muffled it.

  “Listen. I’m a friend. Are you Camden? Jake Camden, Everett Scarborough’s friend.”

  The man grew quiet. His eyes rolled slightly and eerily as though they’d become loose in their moorings. “Camden,” he muttered. “Jake ... Jaaakkkkkkkkkeeeeeeee ...”

  “Yes. Is that you?”

  “Make her stop it ... stop it ... I swear, that’s all I know. I swear I’ll do anything. ANYTHING!”

  “You’re going to be okay. Just settle down. All right?”

  My God, what kind of devil’s brew did they inject this poor guy with? His hands were shaking as though touched with palsy, and his face was starting to twitch. His eyes started now as though he were watching the ceiling erupt with demons and hobgoblins.

  “Don’t let them get me! Don’t let them GET ME, please!”

  “Steady there, pal. They’re not going to get you. Now tell me ... You’re Jake, right?”

  “Yes ... Jake ... Jake ... That’s me. Jake ...” Pause. A deep sigh. “Jesus, I could use a drink. They don’t have booze on flying saucers, though. No booze ... no beer ... Drying out ... Need a drink. Jesus!”

  “I’ll get you a drink. Just settle down, okay.”

  The very thought of a drink seemed to calm the man somewhat.

  “Okay, Jake. If you promise not to do anything weird, I’ll let you out of these straps.”

  “Yeah, yeah ... straps ... God, they hurt. They hurt bad.”

  They were ridiculously tight. Christ, he had the reading on this Cunningham lady all right. She was a goddamned sadist. Leave it up to Brian Richards to recruit a sadist to head up a program. It took a while, but he got the straps unbuckled. He helped Camden off the table.

  Camden collapsed onto the floor.

  “Oh God, they cut off my legs!” he moaned from the ground.

  “No, they didn’t cut off your legs, man. The circulation’s been cut off.”

  “Well, something’s sure been cut, that’s all I know.”

  Myers rubbed Camden’s legs and arms methodically, helping to restore the circulation. Still the man couldn’t stand. All Jake Camden could do was hobble to a chair, where he crashed down, breathing shakily.

  “Whew! What did they do to you?” said Myers.

  “Drugs ... I don’t know what else ... Oh God ... I almost lost all identity, all hope ... Who are you, anyway?”

  “Myers. Edward Myers.”

  It took a moment to register, but suddenly recognition entered Jake Camden’s drug-colored eye like a fain
t glimmer of hope in total gloom. “You’re Scarborough’s buddy. His spook friend!”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where’s Scarborough?”

  “Do you think you can walk?”

  “I don’t know, I’ll try.” Camden wobbled to his feet, lingered there for only a few unsteady seconds, and then collapsed back into the chair. “Yep. I can walk, but give me a few minutes, huh?”

  “Stay here,” said Myers, starting for the door.

  “Yeah. Like I’m going anywhere quick in my shape,” Camden’s voice was still vague and thick with the drugs. “But you didn’t answer my question. Where’s Scarborough?”

  When Ed Myers turned around, he was holding a .38 automatic gripped tightly in his hand.

  You could push a man only so far past what he believes in, Myers thought. And then either he snaps—or he snaps back.

  Edward Myers had not snapped.

  “I’m going for him right now,” he said, and ran out into the hallway.

  Chapter 35

  “Kidnapped by aliens?” said Scarborough. He tried to keep up a bluff manner, but his mouth went dry and he stuttered the rest. “Th-that’s your scam, isn’t it, Doctor?”

  Dr. Cunningham was silent a moment, studying her captive carefully. “There’s no sense in denying that our project has encouraged the development and nature of the phenomenon. But it is a phenomenon, Scarborough. Make no mistake about that. It does happen.”

  “What? You’re not trying to tell me there really are aliens walking around on earth doing irrational things?”

  “That aspect is inconsequential” She tapped his forehead and her finger felt cold on his brow. “I’m talking about what goes on in the mysterious depths of the human mind, Scarborough. I’m talking about psychology. Carl Jung was fascinated with the flying saucer phenomenon. I suppose you know that.”

  “You clearly haven’t read my books.”

  “Oh, of course. You do mention him from time to time, but always in a pooh-poohing fashion. This is what always fascinated me about your particular neurosis—this whole denial thing. I mean, it wasn’t just that you took a skeptical attitude toward the UFO phenomenon and its resultant twists. It was as though you had a personal vendetta against it—or against something that happened to you.”